RICHMOND, Ind. – A local die casting company has plans to expand its footprint and workforce in the coming months as it continues to receive new work orders.

Omen USA, a secondary supplier of automotive parts for Ford passenger vehicles, recently began construction on a new addition to its existing 75,000-square-foot plant near Rich Road

The company, which already employs about 45 people, also expects to hire up to 160 more workers over the next few years with the addition of new production units.

Plant manager Dror De Porto said hiring is continuing, with the company planning to add about 40 to 50 new workers by the year's end.

"We are extremely excited to be able to continue to grow in the area," he said. "We are hopeful our growth will lead to more jobs in the coming months and years as we continue to receive additional work."

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Omen USA's plant manager Dror De-Porto speaks to a group of people during an informational session at Ivy Tech Community College on Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2017.(Photo: Mickey Shuey/Palladium-Item)

The company recently saw the approval of three separate tax abatement requests by the city of Richmond's Common Council for manufacturing equipment; the total value is an estimated $36 million in investment, according to documents provided to The Palladium-Item.

At that time, company officials stated they hoped to have up to 100 employees within a couple years of opening; the plant began operation in the first half of 2017. It had active orders for a limited number of parts in its first year of operation due to its continued upsizing.

That's expected to change soon.

De Porto said a new order coming in will see the company produce hundreds of thousands of units of a specific vehicle part each year, in addition to existing smaller orders reaching up to 60,000 parts per year.

He said continued growth in sales has helped Omen's efforts to expand, and a new 35,000-square-foot addition, already under construction, is expected to help the company double its amount of computer numerical control (CNC) machines, which are used to machine specific vehicle parts.

"This will support the growth going into this high-volume project that would start somewhere in early 2019," De Porto said. "We need to present samples, our capabilities; we need to approve the manufacturing process first."

Contributing to the area

De Porto said the company is also seeking an abatement to help pay for the in-progress addition, which is expected to be completed in August. The construction is being done by Smarelli Contractors, a local contracting company.

Omen anticipates adding 16 CNC machines in the next year, as well as up to 10 in the year after that. There are also plans to add two new die casting machines per year over the next three years, totaling six new pieces of equipment in the die casting area.

De Porto said abatements, which allow companies to pay limited taxes on the equipment for about 10 years as they ramp up production and pay off debt, play an integral role in the company's ability to further secure its future in the area.

"Any kind of abatement would help us in terms of our investment in this facility," he said. "It's very helpful for us."

De Porto said another 40,000-square-foot addition may come in 2019 or 2020, and the company could ultimately employ up to 250 people, but the timeline for that work has not yet been finalized.

He said that expansion would depend on the company's production levels at the time, but he added he is confident the company will continue to grow.

Valerie Shaffer, president of the Economic Development Corporation, said the county is continuing to work with Omen as it seeks additional incentives.

She said this includes discussions with the state about what breaks the Indiana Economic Development Corp. can offer the company, on top of $550,000 already offered to the company through performance-based workforce development and skill enhancement grants.

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A sign for OMEN USA is seen along Rich Road in Richmond, Ind. on Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2017.(Photo: Mickey Shuey/Palladium-Item)

"Omen is a great contributor to the area already so early on in its time here," she said. "We are working with them to help them find new opportunities in our area and to help it continue to grow, which is something it has indicated it would like to do."

Working with local vendors

De Porto said he anticipates the company will use local vendors for as much of the new equipment expected to come on line over the next year as possible, though he did not specify how much investment in other Wayne County companies by Omen that could create.

"It's always been in our minds to support any company, or any vendor, locally," he said. "Not only to support the local community, but I think it also contributes to our capabilities and our goals, because it's much easier for us to deal with local vendors and service providers, as opposed to looking into very distant (providers)."

Omen is considered a Tier II supplier of parts for passenger vehicles. This means the company — which is the only producer in the world of the specific parts it makes — sends its items to a Tier I supplier for assembly and coupling with other parts before they reach the manufacturer.

Richmond-based Ahaus Tool is a vendor for Omen's machining equipment — there's a stamp with the company logo on each machine — and De Porto said he anticipates continuing to work closely with the company as Omen expands.

"We are ready to pay a higher price to work with those kind of vendors," he said. "We're doing a lot of business with them because they are local."

He said using locally made products — which he considers to be from Indiana, Ohio and surrounding states — takes a strain off Omen in the event a machine needs to be serviced or repaired. He said it's much more difficult to find parts and complete fixes on items that are from overseas or not from the immediate region.

De Porto said some specialty equipment is not bought from local vendors because it is so highly specialized it must be ordered from a particular company.

Snow said he is appreciative of the company's efforts to "buy local" as it can.

"Anytime investments stay local — and that filters all the way down to local shopping — it has a huge impact on our local economy," he said. "I'm just thankful they are utilizing as many local resources as they can."

Still hiring

De Porto said he anticipates the hiring process to continue over the coming months, including through job fairs and seminars, though he said he believes it could be more difficult than it has been so far.

This is due in part to the low unemployment rate — around 3 percent for the county as of December 2017 — and the continued growth of other manufacturers, including Blue Buffalo, which announced plans to locate in the area just months after Omen did.

Snow said he is hopeful people will continue to seek out local resources that are available — including, but not limited to Manufacturing Matters, Excel Center and Richmond Adult Education and Natco Community Empowerment Center, as well as the Next Level Jobs program through the state of Indiana and Ivy Tech.

"I think the challenge comes in the way of connecting those who are unemployed or underemployed into the resources that are available to navigate them into gainful employment," he said. "Those resources are here in Richmond and we need to ... help those who need help to navigate through them."

De Porto said he is optimistic about the company's future in the area and he thinks the company will be able to find the appropriate number of highly-skilled workers looking ahead

"Considering the very low unemployment rate here, we're doing very well, even though it's a constant struggle," he said. "We are all looking at the same pool and we are all hoping to get a good piece of it."